


Where I Lay My Head Tonight I

by Crowgirl



Series: Scars Remind Us [52]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Cuddling, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, character injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 22:18:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/508293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ongoing discussion, and ramifications thereof, between Dean and Castiel about the after-effects of Hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where I Lay My Head Tonight I

LII.

‘Dean. Dean. Dean. _Dean.’_

The constant repetition of his own name is getting annoying but his mouth is too full of fluff for him to do anything about it.

‘Dean. Dean.’

‘....sh’ t’f’ck ‘p...’

‘He’s alive.’ 

‘And cussin’ to prove it.’

‘Dean, I need you to open your eyes.’

God, he really doesn’t want to do that. His head is throbbing; he’s pretty sure the sides of his skull are going in and out as he breathes; and he’s not convinced he’ll keep down breakfast if he opens his eyes.

‘Dean.’

‘Shu’p.’

‘I will not. Open your eyes.’ 

‘Seriously, man, he won’t. Just...open your eyes.’ Sam’s voice. 

Dean groans, feeling it from the soles of his feet to his shoulders, like someone’s shaking him.

‘Dean, open your eyes.’

‘’f I do...’ll you shu’ up?’ Talking is getting a little easier, but his mouth tastes like shit.

‘Yes. Open your eyes.’

It takes a moment of intense concentration but he manages it, each eyelid feeling like it weighs about ten pounds.

He has to blink a couple of times to get his eyes to focus -- the light is dim and he’s not sure which way ‘round things are at first. It gets a bit easier after the third time: his eyelashes stop feeling like they’re individually weighted and working against him.

Castiel is sitting beside him, a hand on his shoulder, blue eyes sharp on his face.

Dean has an immediate impression of something _wrong,_ but Castiel turns away before he can figure it out. 

‘He is fine.’

There’s a heavy sigh and a squeak of bedsprings. ‘Thank Christ.’

Dean knows that sound: Sam giving up after a long day. ‘W’a’s...’ It barely makes sense even to him and he stops, coughs -- which also hurts -- and tries again. His throat feels raw and what the fuck is up with that. ‘What. Happened.’

There’s another groan of springs and Bobby clears his throat. ‘Long day. I’m turnin’ in.’ A hand touches Dean’s knee -- Bobby’s, he guesses -- and shakes his leg slightly. ‘Rest up, boy.’

A door opens, there’s a brief draft of cool air, and it shuts again.

Dean blinks, starts to get things into better focus. The room is the usual motel crap: TV, dirt brown furniture, obnoxious wallpaper, curtains that should’ve been burned about the same time he was born. 

He can feel the familiar scratch of polyester under his hands and-- Wait. Wasn’t he in the back of a van when this started? ‘Cas.’

The angel looks back at him and Dean can see better now. ‘Jesus. Cas.’

Castiel looks _exhausted._ His skin is the color of paper and his eyes are far too bright under the dark fringe of hair. His lips look dry and sore, like he’s been biting at them, and he even has bruised smears under his eyes. He looks down at Dean and Dean can see the fraction of a second it would take a human -- a _human_ \-- to refocus his eyes and that just looks too fuckin’ weird on Cas. 

‘I am...tired.’ Castiel lifts his hand -- slowly, carefully, like he did back when he wasn’t sure how human bodies worked -- and Dean can see the faint tremor in his fingers. Castiel’s skin is cold when he touches the back of Dean’s hand.

‘Tired from...from what?’ Dean turns his head, looking for Sam. All he can see for a minute is a mound of brown and blue in the next bed, then his eyes catch on to the perspective and it becomes his brother, draped over the narrow bed with his legs on one side and his head on the other. ‘Sam?’

A hand raises and waves, then flops back. ‘Hey. Nice t’hear your voice again.’

‘What...th’ fuck...’ The rest of the words catch in his throat and he coughs, tries to catch his breath, fails, and coughs harder. Distantly, he feels an arm slide around his shoulder and realises Castiel is helping him sit up, pushing a glass against his mouth. The water tastes faintly of chlorine, but he’s willing to go with it and once he starts he feels he might as well just open his mouth under the tap. Jesus, who thought _dreaming_ would leave him feeling like he'd run the fucking Sahara?

There’s another heaving sigh and squeal of bedsprings. ‘I’m out. You gonna be okay, Cas?’

‘I will be fine, Sam. Sleep well.’

‘Yeah, you, too.’ Sam leans over Dean for a minute and Dean can see exhaustion on his brother’s face, too: there are deep purple shadows under his eyes, and lines of tension around his mouth that haven’t been there for... since...

‘Sammy?’

The lines deepen and Sam disappears out of his field of vision.

‘Sammy? Sam--’ Dean hears the door shut and drags his head around so he can see Cas. The angel’s eyes are half-closed and he is swaying slightly as he stands. As Dean looks, Castiel takes a deep breath and steadies himself with his hands on his knees and opens his eyes again, looking straight at Dean.

‘Cas, what the hell happened.’ Dean has to stop and draw breath but his voice is staying with him this time. ‘I feel like hammered shit and you and Sammy look like it.’

‘I...would like to lie down, Dean.’ Castiel passes a hand over his face and through his hair, rubbing at the base of his skull.

‘Yeah, okay...’ Dean tries to slide aside on the bed to make room and his muscles will barely listen to him. It’s as if he’s been on a marathon followed by a five-hour hike followed by one of his dad’s training exercises followed by a nice relaxing massage with rocks. 

‘Here...’ Castiel reaches towards him, then hesitates, holding his hands palm out towards Dean. ‘May I?’

‘May...Jesus, Cas, yes.’

It takes a few minutes, but Dean finally ends up propped on the pillows at the head of the bed, a blanket flung over his legs. For someone who’s slept the best part of the day, he feels like he’s been awake for weeks. 

Castiel stops by the side of the bed -- less like it’s something he meant to do and more like that’s just where his limbs decided to stop moving. Dean’s not imagining it anymore: the angel is swaying on his feet and he’s blinking in a way Dean finds all too familiar.

‘Cas...’ Dean reaches out and grabs Castiel’s hand just as the angel staggers. ‘Cas, sit down for Christ’s sake.’

The angel stumbles and ends up on the opposite bed, his hand still in Dean’s. ‘I...is this what being tired feels like?’

‘Yeah...yeah, it is. What the hell’ve you been _doing_ all day?’

‘Looking after you.’

‘I was asleep!’

‘The demons were not.’

‘But I...I don’t _sleepwalk--’_ Dean had a sudden ridiculous picture of himself crawling around the back of the van on hands and knees. Even if he had decided to take up sleep _crawling,_ he couldn’t have gotten very far. Cas could have gotten himself some popcorn and enjoyed the show for all Dean cares!

‘No. You do not.’ Castiel sighs deeply and closes his eyes. There’s a long moment of silence, then he opens his eyes again and looks at Dean. ‘The traps are breaking faster than we calculated. The demon we captured today was almost free.’

‘But we got him, right?’

Castiel nods. ‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

‘They have...made each other stronger, Dean. I do not know how. Somehow -- they are using the spells in the traps to talk to each other. I must have...left some loophole, some flaw that they are exploiting--’ Castiel grimaces. ‘I should never have tried to do the work so quickly.’

‘But your plan’s workin’.’ Dean squeezes Castiel’s chill fingers and tries to sound more enthusiastic than he feels. ‘It’ll be fine.’

Castiel looks at him soberly. ‘Dean, what day is it?’

‘What...’ Dean blinks. ‘Tuesday. Tuesday night.’

Castiel shakes his head slowly. ‘It is Thursday.’

‘You...what? Thursday? How the hell--what, the spells lost me _time?_ They were just supposed to keep me asleep! What the fuck, Cas--’ Dean struggles up onto his elbows, dropping the angel’s hand, anger burning through the cold chill of knowing he has lost two days. 

‘The demons caught you.’ Castiel’s voice is toneless and he is looking down at his hands, spread on his knees, rather than at Dean. ‘Sam and I...’ He pauses, licks his lips, and looks up at Dean. 

‘Oh, Jesus, no...’ Dean doesn’t even really know what he’s denying until he hears the words and realises what he’s thinking. He squeezes his eyes shut and all he can see is himself with sneering black eyes: _this is what you’re gonna be_

‘Do not be angry with Sam.’ Castiel looks down at the backs of his hands. ‘He had to help me. There was no other way. Bobby was able to handle the trap on his own but...’

Dean lets himself fall back on the pillows, staring up at the ceiling. Numb nausea churns in his stomach and he wonders idly if he could even make it to the bathroom to puke. 

‘I had to ask him, Dean.’

Dean turns his head on the pillow. Castiel looks small, as though he has turned in on himself and somehow shrunk away. His shoulders are rounded, collapsed inwards, and his eyes are more heavily lidded than normal. _Jesus..._ His spark of anger strangles and dies. ‘Cas.’

The angel looks up immediately, blinking his eyes open, and something in Dean’s chest hurts. He stretches his hand back out to Castiel. ‘C’mere.’

Hesitantly, the angel’s fingertips brush his, but Castiel stays where he is, watching their hands as though expecting some trick and Dean shudders to think what that might have been in the last two days. He clears his throat. ‘Please, Cas?’ He smoothes his other hand over the empty space beside himself.

‘You should rest, Dean...’

‘Believe me, I’m gonna. But...I’d...I think I’d...rest better if...if you were here.’ Dean jerks his chin at the other bed. ‘Not over there chewin’ your heart out over somethin’ you can’t change.’

Castiel looks up at him, blue eyes unreadable, then nods slowly and stands up, stiff and awkward. Carefully, as if each movement requires individual thought, he strips off the trenchcoat and suit jacket, lays them neatly on the foot of the second bed, and drapes his tie over them. He toes off his shoes, leaves them next to Dean’s heavy boots, and cautiously lies down beside Dean, barely allowing his fingertips to touch Dean’s hand.

Dean lets his eyes drift shut. If he had a little more energy -- just a _little_ more control over his muscles -- he could put an arm around Cas, pull the smaller man close against him, give in to that stupid urge to _cuddle_ that Cas pulls out of his chest: that want to feel Castiel close and solid and _safe_ beside him.

‘You will feel better tomorrow, Dean.’ Castiel’s voice is slow, thick with sleep. ‘The last... It was some hours ago.’

‘Cas...did...’ He doesn’t want to ask the question, but if he doesn’t, it’ll niggle and pick and dig and poke away at him. ‘Did I...do anything...like...like that night?’ And if Cas doesn’t understand what he means, the question is just going to have to fester ‘cause he can’t ask it any more directly than that.

‘No.’ Castiel’s hair brushes softly against his shoulder as the angel shakes his head firmly. ‘No. Nothing.’

‘You lyin’, Cas?’

‘No, Dean.’

He can’t think of anything else to say -- he doesn’t really want to know what else he did and so long as he didn’t...then he doesn’t care too much about hearing it. Not right now anyway.

It seems much more worthwhile to use what little energy he can drag up to twist over on his side, curling himself around Castiel. He knows he’s moving slowly and stupidly, like all his limbs have fallen asleep at once, but the angel’s not complaining. Dean can hear his breathing slow and steady and feel the slightly tickly feeling of Castiel’s hair against his throat and the underside of his chin. He slides his arms around Cas' shoulders, tries to press some of the warmth of his own skin into Castiel's chill body.

He closes his own eyes, lets his chin rest on the top of Castiel’s head, and breathes in the angel’s faint scent of spice as deeply as he can, letting it wash the phantom taint of blood out of the back of his throat.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Your Arms Feel Like Home," 3 Doors Down, _3 Doors Down._


End file.
